


Day Four: Hazel & Augustus

by claryherondale



Category: The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Genre: Cancer, Cemetery, Death, F/M, Fluff, Illnesses, Love, No Smut, Romance, Sad, Teenagers, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 13:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8753458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claryherondale/pseuds/claryherondale
Summary: Day 4 of My 31 Favorite ShipsThe December after Augustus dies, Hazel Grace makes what may well be her last trip to his grave.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is short, but enjoy a little bit of sad fluff.

I walked across the grass slowly, pulling my oxygen tank behind me as I attempted to keep my jacket secured tightly around me with my free hand. It was early December, so it was pretty cold out—clouds littered the sky and made everything dark. It still bothered me, when I let myself think about it, that I never got to spend a Christmas with Augustus. Not that either of us were particularly religious: although Gus certainly believed in Something, he certainly wasn’t a Christian in a traditional sense.

But still, it was the principal of it. It would have been nice to be able to spend a widely recognized holiday with the love of my life, the only love that I would ever get. Because I was dying, and he was dead. I knew that I was going to die soon, and part of me was concerned about leaving my family in the middle of a sentence, but the rest of me had accepted the reality of it. The fact that my mom had started working as a counselor in a support group for those with cancer and their families was certainly helpful. Their lives wouldn’t end when mine did. I wasn’t a grenade.

Dying sucked, though. It hurt. My lungs hurt—they burned in my chest, aching for the air that I couldn’t give them. I managed to make it to Gus’s grave without much trouble though, and I sat on the ground beside where I knew his body was, six feet below. I pulled the box of cigarettes out of my pocket and rested it in front of his grave. I had given him a pack to be buried with, but I always brought another when I came.

The previous ones were gone every time I came back, and although I knew it was just because the groundskeepers thought they were discarded litter, I liked to think that he was taking them.

Because there was nothing else keeping me connected to him any longer. I didn’t feel him, his presence. The scent of him had faded from the sheets that his parents still couldn’t bear to pack up and stuff into storage, to be forgotten about. He had left a small mark on this planet, but it was fading with every day. And when I died, it would fade even more.

He didn’t get a heroic ending. But that was okay. He was a hero in my life, even though he wasn’t able to save me from anything. He still died. And I would still die as well.

I pulled a pressed flower out of my coat pocket: it was orange, like the tulips he had once given me as a hint to the Wish he had made for us—the color of Amsterdam. I rested it beside the cigarettes, which he could be smoking now, since it didn’t make a difference. 

“I don’t know whether or not I’ll make it here on Christmas,” I said aloud, feeling utterly stupid. “I don’t even know if I’ll still be alive or not. My doctors are trying to prepare my parents for the inevitable, but they’re as prepared as they ever will be. I’m not quite sick enough to be put on hospice care—I’m close, though.”

He couldn’t hear me. I felt no trace of him in the air around me. But I knew that, if any part of his consciousness was still there, he would want me to be sitting here, talking to him. It made me feel closer to the Gus that I actually could sense—the Gus that lived on in my memory—because I knew that it was something he would have liked. It was something he would have done, if I were the one who died first. He would sit here reading books to me, telling me about Isaac and their video game conquests, and would reiterate his latest epiphany about the nature of life and the universe to try to get an opinion from me that I wouldn’t be able to give.

So I could do this, even if it felt pointless. I could do this for him.

“Gus—Augustus,” I said, remembering how much it had upset him once I started calling him ‘Gus’ when he was getting really sick, “do you want to know what my favorite memory of you is?”

I took a moment to inhale a few labored breaths. The tips of my fingers were a little blue with under-oxygenation. I flexed them a bit; I knew they would be cold to anyone not in my skin.

I continued, “Although I know this disappoints you, it wasn’t when we slept together.” I momentarily imagined the look of mock hurt on his face. “It was when I was upset and looking at The Swing Set of Tears and you came over and we uploaded it onto Craigslist. That’s my favorite memory of you. I can’t quite tell you why—even if I wasn’t positive that I loved you then, because I was trying to prevent that for your sake, it just made me feel like I was worth caring about for some reason other than the fact that I’m dying.”

I gently ran my hand through the grass over his grave. I would never be able to thank him enough for what he did for me: he gave me a life that wasn’t just about dying. I bit my lip for a moment, just looking at the engraving on his gravestone. 

AUGUSTUS WATERS: LOVING SON  
“In order to see the rainbow, you must first endure the rain.”

He would absolutely hate that, I was sure. Wasn’t there anything more to him? I guessed nothing that was suitable for a tombstone.

My lungs were starting to hurt too much to stay there. I needed to go home and take some of my wide array of medications. They weren’t to stop death—they were just to ease the pain of the process leading there. As difficult as it was for pills to have any effect on me since I had built up such a high tolerance, I needed as much help as I could get.

I got up, leaving the orange tulip and cigarettes. 

Just as I started to walk away, I couldn’t help but to stop and turn back. “Augustus Waters, I will meet you in Amsterdam, okay?” And since he wasn’t there to respond, I whispered back on his behalf, “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hint for tomorrow's ship:  
> "I would die for you. But I won't live for you."


End file.
